


Pattern Recognition

by redbrickrose



Series: SPN: season 15 codas [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Feels, Castiel Makes a Deal with The Shadow (Supernatural), Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Coda, M/M, Post-Episode: s15e09 The Trap, Purgatory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:47:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22325023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbrickrose/pseuds/redbrickrose
Summary: Dean braces himself; he knows by heart how this story goes.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: SPN: season 15 codas [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1606942
Comments: 7
Kudos: 122





	Pattern Recognition

**Author's Note:**

> This is so much sap, but it's also angst. 
> 
> Basically, I just want an entire episode where Dean and Cas sit at the table and TALK TO EACH OTHER. So this is that.

Sam goes to bed, and Dean knows he should too. He’s been awake for approaching forty-eight hours and he’s shaking with exhaustion and the adrenaline crash. The whiskey isn’t helping much either, but it soothes his still jangling nerves and slows the racing in his head.

He feels like there’s some kind of gentle tether holding him here, next to Cas in comfortable but charged silence with their knees pressed together under the table. He’s afraid that any kind of sudden shift will break the moment, and he doesn’t want to be alone. They haven’t talked much since Purgatory; everything after that was utilitarian. Get the spell together, do the spell, whatever you do _don’t think_ about the implications of the spell, get to Sam. And now, in the silence, after nothing played out like he hoped it would and he’s a guiltily relieved about that more than anything, he doesn’t totally know what to say.

Or, that’s not quite true. He has a list of things to say. He just doesn’t know where to even start.

“Are you okay?” Cas finally asks, quietly, breaking the silence. “You’re very…” he cocks his head as though looking for the right word. “...loud, right now.”

Dean chuckles, looking down at his whiskey and swirling it in the glass. “You can hear what I’m thinking?” He’s never been sure where exactly that line is or how much intention on his part it takes for Cas to hear him. That would make this easier, he supposes.

“No, not in words. But I’m sensing some turmoil.”

“It’s not…” he starts, and breaks off. Turmoil isn’t the word he’d use for it. He just feels tender, like his emotions are an exhausted muscle or a bruise that aches when he prods at it. “I’m fine.” He says, but that’s not quite right either, and Cas looks at him like he knows it. Dean takes another sip of his whiskey for something to with his hands and tries again. “I don’t know if any of us are okay. I’m a _lot_ better than I was. I’m just thinking.”

Cas nods; when he looks at Dean his eyes are searching. “We will find another way.”

“Yeah. I meant what I said to Sam. If what Chuck showed him was bad enough that he didn’t think it was worth the risk, I trust that. I think...we just have to trust each other." And he knows that's maybe not the approach he would have taken last year, or even last week, but something shifted in Purgatory. They do have to trust each other, or they're not getting out of this. And he desperately, desperately wants there to be another way. "Listen," he says, "the Mark, I lived with it. Hell, I died with it.”

Cas’ eyes flash. “I remember.”

“It’s like drowning in all of the worst parts of yourself, every worst impulse you’ve ever had, and not being able to stop it. I know we’re headed for a shitstorm eventually, and I know we’re going to do what we have to do. There might be some no-win choices coming because that’s how this goes, but here, today? I’m not sorry we’re not going down that road, man.” He huffs a laugh, dry but not entirely without humor. “‘I’m glad you don’t have it, whatever that means for the future. We got Sam and Eileen out safe. So yeah, I think I’m mostly okay.”

Cas smiles at him, a little wry. “I admit, I was not...looking forward to that experience.”

Dean laughs again, mostly in relief. “Yeah. It sucks.”

Cas’ face turns pensive. He’s drumming his thumb against the table, as though he’s thinking. It’s a very human mannerism. “You’re right,” he finally says, as though making a decision. “We have to trust each other. And we have to be honest. I should have told you about everything with Jack.”

“We all knew something was wrong. And then it turns out Chuck was…” Dean waves his hand to indicate _manipulating everything_ ; it still sets him on edge that he feels like he doesn’t totally understand the extent of that. “I don’t think it would have changed anything.”

“Maybe not. But I should have told you.” He holds up one hand when Dean starts to interject. “And I know you forgive me, and I accept your apology too, _of course_. But you’re still right. We can’t keep falling into the same patterns. None of us.” He casts a glance to the doorway, as though to include Sam in that too.

“We’re good, Cas,” Dean says, but there’s something he doesn’t like in the way Cas shifts in his seat and the way his breath hitches. There’s an undercurrent to this conversation that feels like it has the potential to drag him down.

Cas doesn’t look particularly comforted by Dean’s words. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, and then reaches for Dean’s hand. Dean’s anxiety kicks up another notch because as much as he does feel like Purgatory cracked some kind of wall between them, their history of physical contact is still mostly limited to someone dying or returning from the dead. He lets Cas wrap their fingers together and squeeze.

“I’ve been thinking,” Cas says, “since what you said in Purgatory. There’s something else I need to tell you.”

“Okay,” Dean says. There’s a shake in his voice and he swallows it down.

“It’s nothing with Chuck. And it’s nothing we have to worry about tonight. But I think you should know.” Cas pauses, collecting his thoughts. “Do you remember, when I came back from the Empty, I told you I annoyed an ancient cosmic entity into letting me go?”

Dean nods. He doesn’t like to remember much about that time, but he remembers every second of that reunion.

“That’s pretty much what happened. But the entity wasn’t happy about it. Not then, and not later.” Cas sighs, looking down at the table where their hands are joined. “Then, when Jack died, the first time, and I went to find him in Heaven, there was a fight. Jack was part angel and part human. Both Heaven and the Empty wanted him, and the entity invaded Heaven. It killed a bunch of angels before it caught up with us. It had a claim on him, and it would have taken him.”

Dean braces himself; he knows by heart how this story goes.

Cas looks up at him then, something both apologetic and defiant his gaze when their eyes meet. “Dean, I made a deal. Me for Jack.”

Dean breathes out harshly; that’s where he was afraid this was going, but his body still goes hot and shocky. The anger wants to rise, but he pushes it down and breathes through it; at its core is the screaming fear he tries to never let out. Purgatory, the Mark, this. That’s three times he’s nearly lost Cas in two days. The hits keep coming. “The Winchester special. Jesus, you really are one of us,” he says. “That was over a year ago.”

Cas nods, and brings up with his other hand and reaching out for Dean, who takes it so that they’re holding both hands across the table, staring at each other. “Yes,” Cas says. “It didn’t want me then. It said it would wait until I was _truly_ happy before coming for me. I didn’t tell you and I asked Jack not to tell you. I know your and Sam’s history with...deals. It didn’t seem like an imminent threat at the time.” He raises one eyebrow, sardonic and self-deprecating. “It still doesn’t. And if Chuck gets his way, we may not live long enough for it to matter, but you deserve to know. It’s not fair for you not to know.”

Cas is studying Dean, intently, like he’s willing him to understand; he put a subtle emphasis on the word ‘you’ and squeezed Dean’s hands just that little bit tighter. And through the fear and the racing of his heart, and yes, the anger, there and percolating, Dean is picking up what Cas is putting down. He’s saying _you, Dean Winchester, are central to my happiness_. He’s saying _I heard you in the forest, everything you said and everything you really meant_. He saying, again, _we are real_. Maybe all of their cards aren’t on the table, but this is an acknowledgement that they both know what kind of hand the other is holding.

Dean swallows thickly and lets go of one of Cas’ hands to reach up and rub at his eyes. His fingertips come away wet, and he doesn’t know when he teared up again. All of his nerves are scraped raw. He drops his hand back onto the table, and Cas takes it again, his eyes wide and searching, waiting for something.

“It’s okay,” Dean finally says. It’s not, and Cas knows that, but it’s where they are. “We’ll figure it out,” Dean promises. And he knows he can’t promise that because he _knows this story_ but he means it, all the same. If they survive Chuck, there’s no way in hell he’s letting things end that way.

They stare at each other for another few minutes before Cas says, “You’re dead on your feet. You have to sleep,” but he doesn’t make a move to get up or untangle himself from Dean. Dean doesn’t remember the last time he was this tired, but he still doesn’t want to be alone, or let Cas out of his sight.

It’s a night for honesty, right? “Come with me?” Dean asks. “Sleep if you need to, or just watch over me, I don’t care.”

“Of course,” Cas says, and Dean hears the _always_ in his voice. Cas tugs him to his feet without letting go of his hand.


End file.
